Expanding Opportunity and Empowering Communities: A Year of Impact

Across the globe, meaningful change often begins with access that is access to education, to safe spaces, to knowledge, and to opportunity. Last year, a series of programmes collectively reached hundreds of thousands of individuals, creating positive effects that extend far beyond the numbers themselves.


At the heart of this impact is a commitment to safety and dignity. The Prevention of Gender-Based Violence Programme has supported 2,161 educators across Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Haiti, Nepal, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. By equipping educators with the tools to recognise, prevent, and respond to gender-based violence, the programme is helping to foster safer learning environments for countless students. Teachers are not just educators, they are often the first line of support, and empowering them strengthens entire communities.


Equally transformative is the Positive Periods Programme, which has reached 70,000 women and girls in Ghana, Haiti, and Nepal. Access to menstrual health education and resources is more than a health issue; it is a matter of equity. By breaking stigma and ensuring girls can attend school with confidence, this initiative is helping unlock potential that might otherwise remain out of reach.


Over 500,000 students and educators have benefited from access to digital classrooms and Learning Resource Centres in The Gambia, Haiti, and Nepal. In regions where resources are often limited, digital access opens doors to knowledge, connection, and opportunity, helping to bridge longstanding educational gaps.

Literacy, too, continues to be a powerful tool for empowerment. In Haiti, the Kreyol Literacy Programme has supported 200 learners, enabling individuals to build foundational skills that impact every aspect of life, from employment opportunities to civic participation.


Young people are also stepping into leadership roles. The Youth Ambassador Programme in The Gambia has supported 78 young individuals, nurturing a new generation of advocates and changemakers. These ambassadors are not only gaining skills but also shaping the future of their communities through their voices and actions.


Supporting educators remains a consistent priority. In Sierra Leone, 152 educators participated in Special Educational Needs (SEN) Awareness Workshops, strengthening inclusive teaching practices. Meanwhile, in The Gambia, 80 educators received training in counselling skills, enhancing their ability to support students’ emotional and mental wellbeing an often overlooked but a critical component of education.


Sometimes, impact comes in simple but life-changing forms. The delivery of 40 bicycles to students in rural villages has made it safer and easier for young people to travel to school. For many, this is not just about convenience, it is the difference between attending school regularly and missing out on education altogether.


Taken together, these initiatives highlight a holistic approach to development, one that recognises the interconnected nature of education, health, safety, and empowerment.


The model of working that we have developed over time at the Foundation, a reciprocal learning model that values real partnership working at its core has played a huge part in our development. It has enabled us to develop relationships built on trust and dignity that are achieving the goal of Education for All.


Behind every statistic is a story: a teacher better equipped to support their students, a girl able to attend school without barriers, a young leader finding their voice.


Progress is not defined by a single programme or outcome, but by the collective momentum of many efforts working toward a shared goal. And as these numbers show, that momentum is growing, bringing lasting change to communities around the world.


Thank you to everyone who has supported our work in 2025 and we look forward to making more progress together in 2026.

Ann Beatty • March 1, 2026

In Harmony With Peace Concert

By Ann Beatty • June 1, 2026
On Friday evening ( 29 May, 7.00 pm The Actors Church Covent Garden) we had the pleasure of listening to this very special concert, bringing together the Choir of King's College London and the Princeton High School Orchestra in a celebration of international friendship, collaboration, and shared values. This project reflects a commitment to peace, sustainability, equality, and cultural exchange, uniting young musicians from the United Kingdom and the United States through the universal language of music.

36 Bicycles. Countless Futures in The Gambia.

By Ann Beatty • May 20, 2026
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity. 

Education for Hope in Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous Times

By Laura Griffin • May 13, 2026
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here